Stop Being So Damn Hard On Yourself
Last weekend, after a long and tough week and with a Saturday celebrating the Cherry blossoms, I ended up not writing any article during a full day.
Since I started my blog in October, this was the very first time I didn’t write anything at all in a day. Luckily, I had already written the article that was published on Saturday so it didn’t impact my clean streak of articles.
Yet, it really got to me. During the Hanami (picnic for to celebrate of the fully blossomed cherry blossoms), I answered any of my friends asking I had been diligent and it had gotten to a point where I feel the need to write every single day.
So it got me very disappointed when I realized the next morning, along with a hangover, I hadn’t written at all.
I then thought to myself it was still okay since I had my article ready beforehand, but still, it stayed on my mind again and bothered me through Sunday.
I believed this feeling would pass the next day but it didn’t. I had let myself down and I hated it.
In my research on self-improvement, I have fallen upon Gary Vaynerchuk numerous times and he sometimes mentions the fact that everything is your own fault.
I entirely agree with this mindset of stopping to blame others for our mistakes and have put this one fully into effect in my head.
But it does have downsides if you let it impact you too much.
There were reasons for me not writing at all in a day but in the end, putting all the blame on me got me extremely disappointed in myself and suddenly decreased my motivation.
Due to this, I have since then been caught up by the articles I wrote in advance and am back to “square one”, writing in the morning in order to publish in the afternoon.
To get over it, I decided to write this article, allowing me to be at peace with this failure and realize I am still on the right path, publishing every single day for a year (some articles are not here on Medium as they are strictly language oriented).
Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed by any mistake. Nobody is perfect so you should notice how far you have come and appreciate your work.
I have seen before failing one day is ok but to be careful not to let ourselves let it go for two. Two days in a row creates a trend and begins a new path with the wrong habits.
I failed once and will keep in mind it is crucial to keep a positive attitude towards the future instead of dwelling into the past.
This was meant to happen at one point after all. Life is unpredictable so I should be glad I let it happen while I had articles already written before.
